Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
Kristallnacht
Um, Kristallnacht, um. How did that begin for you?
Bright and early in the morning my father went out to get the paper before we knew anything was going on. And he didn't come uh, the man who owned the uh, who was a hair...haircutter, what is it now?
Barber.
Barber. That's the word. Uh, he came up and said he had been arrested. And then from then on I then saw them coming with the wagons and they took every Jewish male in our house except my brother. They didn't come to our door; they went to all the other doors. They cleared out the house; they cleared out the neighboring houses. And my mother tried to run after the paddy wagon but she couldn't. And they took him to the uh, police station and then they collected them from there.
Your father was interned in the local police station?
Yes. And then they um, for several days. And I went out and my mother felt that I should take the family silver to my aunt who was not Jewish. So I packed down with silver walking through Vienna and I saw them burning stuff and looting. They were looting jewelry stores and uh, plaguing people. And I got to my aunt and I brought her the stuff and I came home. Uh, so I was aware of the extent of the destruction that had gone on. They were burning synagogues and smashing things and throwing out Torahs and everything. And my father was interned, kept for about five days. And then he had the good fortune to find an SS-man who was more sympathetic and he showed him his x-ray, which proved that he didn't have ???The, the SS-man was not a radiologist, so he said oh well; you're sick, go home. It was totally arbitrary. Uh, there was no design on taking this one or that one. So he came home. All of a sudden he came home.
And you think this is when your father determined that it was.
Oh he had determined that before the Anschluss. That was in November.
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